"Some words are clues. You have to look at the picture and then sound
the first letter out and you could read the word. You could find clues
very easy. You can find clues in the picture or in the sentence."

Having been in teacher education for many years, I have heard many comments
like the one above from novice teachers learning about literacy. But this
quote is not from an adult. It is from a sixth grader who is participating
in a cross-age tutoring program with first graders. She is sharing her
thoughts about the tutoring experience with her classroom teacher. After
the program was established five years ago from the work done by Shirley
Brice Heath and Leslie Mangiola (1991), a collaborative relationship began
to emerge among the teachers--Barbara Cook, Mary Stirton, and me--at Cleveland
Elementary School, Stockton City Unified School District (CA). We named
the project the Literacy Club, borrowed from the work of Frank Smith (1988),
and the children named themselves the Rapid Readers and the Little Readers.
Even we three could not have foreseen the wonderful effects of the project.

The design of the project is not unique; after all, cross-age tutoring
programs have been used by good teachers for a long time. Research shows
great gains for both tutees and tutors, even when the children being tutored
and the tutors are from special education backgrounds (see Topping, 1987,
for a review). What is wonderful about the project is that nearly all of
the children involved speak English as their second language--not just
the Little Readers but the Rapid Readers. In fact, many of the Rapid Readers,
whose primary languages include Hmong, Khmer, Lao, and Vietnamese, have
been learning English for only a year or two. Through the years, it has
become surprisingly evident that the tutoring program should not be a frill
to be included only if time is available, but the core of empowering student-centered
learning around which much of the curriculum is organized.

THE LITERACY CLUB AT WORK

Children are paired as much as possible with students who share their
primary language. The Rapid Readers assume the responsibility of reading
to the Little Readers. They talk about books, identify good books to read,
and discuss how little children learn to write. The Rapid Readers are encouraged
to translate any of the books into the Little Readers' native languages
and to talk about the books in the native language because, the goal is
to help the Little Readers to become literate.
After a half-hour of tutoring, the Rapid Readers return to their class
and begin documenting their experiences and making notes for their next
lesson plans. As the year progresses, they also write letters to the first-grade
teacher in which they evaluate the progress of their Little Readers. The
Rapid Readers also share their perceptions with their classmates, help
to solve problems, and celebrate victories. Next, they write lesson plans
for the following session. (A more complete description of The Literacy
Club can be seen in Cook & Urzua, 1993).

FOUNDATION OF THE CLUB

Although the model can be adapted to the differences among teachers
and students who have organized literacy clubs in their schools, the following
points have guided the club's development at Cleveland Elementary School:

* Every child in the classroom must be involved in the Literacy Club.
It is the central core of the language arts program, whether there are
a few or many students from diverse backgrounds.

* The life skills of students from many ethnic communities frequently
include care-giving and cooperation skills that may or may not be recognized
or utilized in school communities. The Literacy Club values and uses those
life skills.

* The primary language of students from many ethnic backgrounds, although
not often spoken by school personnel, can nevertheless be supported by
not simply allowing but encouraging it's use at school. Such use of the
primary language is especially important when the school lacks bilingual
staff and materials in other languages.

* Language development, both oral and written, is best acquired through
interaction with more linguistically proficient users (Krashen, 1982).

* Students must engage in active learning experiences. Active learning
is particularly important for early adolescent students, who must see the
usefulness of their behaviors.

* Students must engage in authentic experiences. They must read for
real purposes and write texts that will be read by real audiences. Likewise,
they must engage in situations that help them learn to become self-sufficient,
trusted, empowered human beings.

GOALS OF THE LITERACY CLUB

We established the following goals for the Literacy Club and shared
them during a workshop for the Rapid Readers.

"Expectations for Rapid Readers" (Mary Stirton):

(1) Help Little Readers to be confident when they are reading and writing.

(2) Be a friend and give support when Little Readers are trying new
things.

(3) Help Little Readers to tell their own stories.

(4) Help Little Readers make guesses about how to write words.

"Expectations for Rapid Readers" (Barbara Cook):

(1) Gain confidence in yourself.

(2) Be aware of the knowledge you have so you can share it with others.

(3) Be a good observer.

(4) Be able to record what you have seen.

(5) Be aware of your Little Readers' needs and be able to adapt to those
needs.

(6) Plan and carry out your plans.

(7) Keep learning about the literacy process so that you will become
a better reader and writer.

SOME OBSERVATIONS

All of the students gain a great deal through this experience. But the
older students seem to develop in areas that could come only through the
empowerment they feel in being the teacher. Although the results of formal
self-esteem measures are inconclusive, interviews with the students reveal
impressive levels of confidence, risk-taking behavior, initiation, and
language and literacy development.

Carlyn Syvanen (1993), who studied the Literacy Club for a year, reports
on interviews she conducted with the Rapid Readers concerning what they
had learned. One student replied that "...one of the things is that when
we hear our Little Readers read we felt like we taught them something.
We are learning to become better teachers every day." In addition to mentioning
academic work, the Rapid Readers also told Syvanen that they were proud
of other aspects of their teaching, as shown by these comments:

* "My best day in the Literacy Club was when (my Little Reader) first
came. We had a lot of fun together. The reason I say that is because we
shared our thoughts and feelings with each other."

* "The best day I had in the Literacy Club is one day my Little Reader
had this problem about not having friends. I told her that just be yourself
and be nice to other people. Be friendly and have friends. She said thank
you for the advice. And during the next Literacy Club, she told me that
she made a friend."

In addition to the obvious empowerment that occurred with the Rapid
Readers, their literacy also often changed dramatically. On the basis of
preliminary analyses of a year's worth of field notes kept by five children,
two of whom were Hmong and three of whom were Cambodian, I have made the
following observations:

* Even with only a beginning grasp of English and with perhaps a limited
view of the tutoring task, the tutor's written language moves from a concern
with controlling the tutoring situation to an interest in observing the
tutee.

* As the tutors begin to acquire teaching behavior and as this acquisition
influences the tutor's self-esteem, there is a concomitant change in written
language moving to more sophisticated use of causal structures.

* As more and more success is acquired in the teaching act, a theory
of literacy develops. (Urzua, 1991)

SUCCESSFUL ASPECTS OF THE LITERACY CLUB

The following is a summary of some of the successes noted by teachers
and researchers:

(1) The Rapid Readers learn to read predictable texts to their Little
Readers--texts that are a means by which beginning learners of English
can gain access to print for themselves, even if they are twelve years
old. To ask twelve-year-olds to read a predictable textbook for themselves
would be insulting. But to ask them to learn to read a predictable text
to prepare for their own students is good teaching and provides an authentic
purpose for their reading.

(2) The teacher maintains a professional relationship with the Rapid
Readers, constantly encouraging them to think of ways of helping their
Little Readers. She trusts them, and they respond to that trust by being
responsible.

(3) The writing that the Rapid Readers do is a reflection of personal
reconstruction of knowledge that they gain. The interaction of cognition
and language is clear to both the teacher and the learner.

Many additional outcomes are still being studied. Our hope is that children
will stay in school longer because of their confidence and that some of
the Rapid Readers will be encouraged to become teachers. We also believe
that the use of the students' native language in classroom activities will
help students develop positive attitudes about bilingualism. The activities
should also help students strengthen their literacy skills in their native
languages--languages that traditionally have been left out of literacy
programs. We are showing that, even without a bilingual teacher, it is
possible to demonstrate support for bilingualism.

Many programs for children acquiring a second language are designed
to fix something that is deficient or broken. But if we believe in the
efficacy of the human spirit, we will recognize the variety of abilities
all students bring with them to school. The Literacy Club is one place
in which children can use all that they have and are to bring about development
for both older and younger children.

Urzua, C. (1991). "Until next time field notes: Children's reflections
on tutoring experiences. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Teachers
of English to Speakers of Other Languages, New York.

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